Chamber and committees

Earlier, you used the phrase, “we can welcome people when we want to”. I am going to mention my constituency again, because in my lifetime we have welcomed Vietnamese boat people, Chilean refugees, Nigerians, Congolese, Syrians and now the Ukrainian settlement, so we are well used to doing that.

I am struck that, when the committee took evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture on Ukraine at an early stage in the situation, we were already talking about how to bring people in and everything was in motion, but that, when we had him in to talk about Gaza, at roughly the same point in that situation’s timescale, nothing was in motion on those issues. Do you have any explanation as to why the process for Gaza is so much slower than the response to the situation in Ukraine?

Our next agenda item is to take evidence on the committee’s inquiry into the Scottish Government’s national outcomes and indicators relating to international policy. From the Scottish Government, we are joined remotely this morning by Catriona Radcliffe, head of the Beijing office—perhaps you could confirm which pronunciation of Catriona is correct—Katrine Feldinger, head of the Copenhagen office, and Christopher Thomson, head of the Washington DC office. Thank you all for taking the time to join us. I hope that all the technology will work for us.

I will open with a question about the annual report, which was published on Monday. It outlines three main pillars of work and seeks to connect those with national outcomes and the network outcomes. However, with regard to the national indicators—the level below the outcomes in the national performance framework—no indicator has been developed specifically for the international network. Is that something that needs to be worked on? If so, how would that be measured?

You have my sympathies and apologies.

I have another question about the national indicators. Some of them, including the indicators for reputation and for international exporting, apply to Scotland’s international policy. The committee recently visited Belfast and Dublin as part of our inquiry work. In Dublin, we met with Irish officials who work in the international office and who told us that they are about to open their 131st overseas mission, which puts them on a slightly different scale to Scotland at the moment. They indicated that soft power is often the way to open up issues such as trade, or to start conversations.

What is the focus of your work? How do you balance those areas and how do you use soft power? Christopher, you are still on screen, so please answer first.

There is a final question, from Mr Brown.

Thank you.

We will move to questions from the committee, starting with Kate Forbes.

Thank you, minister. We have exhausted our questions for you this morning. Thank you for your first attendance; I am sure that it will not be the last. We were very glad to see you today.

A warm welcome back to the 35th meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee.

Before we move on, is the committee content to take agenda item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Were those 220,000 views from within China or globally?

Does Kat from the Copenhagen office want to respond? I am getting confused with the Katrines and Catrionas.